Atari Memories

A look at Atari in it's heyday and it's impact on my Childhood

My earliest days of gaming were much more basic and left more to the imagination than the new games of today. Some of the best Atari games are so basic in concept that they couldn't have been more perfect for a youngster at my age in the early 80s. My fondest memories started at my babysitter's house with my first introduction to the Atari home Pong machine.

The Atari Pong machine was the first home videogame I ever played. This is what started it all, and started my 20+ year hobby of playing videogames. I'll admit I sucked at Pong in the beginning but after a few days of fierce competition I was competing, and beating some of the older kids that had played the game for a much longer time. I was able to grasp the concept so quickly I had a hunger for more games.

Shortly after my summer before Kindergarten I met a new friend in my neighborhood who owned the now legendary Atari 2600. I was astounded that a stack of little black plastic boxes (cartridges) contained some of my favorite arcade games at the time. My favorite Atari 2600 games of that time were Phoenix, Warlords, Ms. Pac-man, Joust, Demon Attack, and Moon Patrol.

We would play Joust, Phoenix and Warlords all the time and the Atari 2600 was played on a regular basis over the course of my school year in 1987, and the summer thereafter. Now I know, I approached the 2600 late in the game. Luckily my family and all of my friends at the time didn't have an NES yet. The Atari 2600 got a good 2.5 years of my appreciation before Mario and Duck Hunt even entered my life, or my mind for that matter. My parents did a good job of concealing the NES from me until a few years after it's launch.

The 2600 was great but the real deal was Atari Arcade games. Some of my earliest favorites were Asteroids and Centipede. My dad worked at a restaurant that had these games and I would play them all the time. I could just barely reach the controls with an arcade step/booster.

Thankfully my dad was a fan of arcade games in the 80s. We normally visited our local Portland Oregon "Mt. Tabor Theatre Arcade" many times during my childhood. We would also go to "Chuck E. Cheese" that was owned and started by Nolan Bushnell in it's early years(He was Atari's Main man along with Ted Dabney in the beginning, and was the front man for Atari from 1972-1978). There was something about the atmosphere at the old arcades that was magical. The sounds of the machines, Journey and REO Speedwagon blaring on the stereo, and just the sheer amount of games that were in arcades back then. It was a different time where a game that you played in the arcade may have been better than home game system translations. Nowadays Kids have the games with the best graphics at home right away. This has slowly made arcades obsolete in more recent years.

By the time I got the NES in 1989 I wasn't interested in the Atari home systems until years later. I didn't own a 2600 through all of those years but in the late 90s my interest was refueled. In 1998-99 I started playing an atari 2600 emulator that ran under DOS (PC Atari) and it sparked the nostalgia bug for me.

Now I own about 50 games again, 3 atari 2600 Systems, and an Atari 7800. Below are some pics of the more known atari 2600 system variations. There are a few revisions that were produced for each version pictured below. Visit atariage.com or atarihq.com for some great info on the old Atari systems and home computers from the 80s.

Common Atari 2600 System Variations

Well, break out that old Atari and have at it. It's a classic system that usually brings back great memories for anyone that grew up during the 70s or 80s. There are homebrew cartridge games being programmed for it to this day (check the atariage.com store if interested), and it has one of the strongest followings of any classic system.

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Dude, great article! My mom bought one for my brother and I back when J.C. Penny's used to have a video game section in the store! She bought the console and Pac-Man had just come out as a cartridge. If memory serves, I think she shelled out about 60-80 bucks for that game!Wow, some awesome memories, I think we ended up with about 50-60 games before it ended up at the pawn shop. *sniffs* Yah, I know I still kick myself in the butt for that one. I've seen atari cartridges at goodwill stores for about .10 cents a piece now, and they still work!That system rocked, and I was grateful to have been a kid growing up in the age of the beinning of consoles and arcades!

My uncle had an early intellivision system. My favourite game was "Microsurgeon". Man I loved it! Later my cousins got an older model atari and we played Enduro, H.E.R.O., Video Pinball and River Raid. Awesome memories!

My dad used to have an Atari. I have fond memories of playing it, but I also remember getting pissed off at it a lot because I had a hard time with the joystick. XD I wish he'd kept that thing. I guess he wishes he did too, because he keeps asking me to get some Atari games for his computer.

I had an Atari STe... the large keyboard style one that could be used as a mini desktop too (basic word documents and the like). Had a lot of high-graphic games... well, high-graphic for those days anyway lol

"Demon Attack, "Cosmic Arc" these are some names I neither heard nor thought about in many years, but now that you mention them I remember them fondly for they were two of my favorites. Thanks for the reminder. Some of my other favorites were Yar's Revenge, Kestone Capers, Joust, Jungle Hunt, Video Pinball and yes, even Raiders of the Lost Arc. I don't know why so many people hated Raiders, I loved that game. I also didn't think ET was all that bad, not one of my favs, but still worth playing.

I remember when your large ship was destroyed in Cosmic Arc you would escape in a small green ship. This theme was repeated in a few other game made by the same company

Great topic. The only problem is that you, litterally, left me wanting more; this article was too darned short. None the less it did bring back fond memories of simpler times. I still remember back in the day (early to mid 80's) when video game could be found almost anywhere. Yes, I recall the years when I was deemed too young to be left hope alone and had to accompany my mom on her daily erands duing the Summer break. I was cool though, because every grocery, drug or convenient store we visited and 3 or 4 VG's set up in the front. You just don't see this anymore. As you mentioned video arcade was becoming less common, and even the one you do find are usually quite pathetic containing a maximum of 12 games, a good 3/4 of wich are stooting and driving games (not the these don't have their place, but c'mon you don't need 5 different driving games) and are over run with kiddie games and rides. They just don't have thier walls jam packed with 50+ VGs like they used too. I still remember the sheer wonder of entering a local arcade to see the wall lined with VG upon VG, each time featuring new cutting edge VGs to try out as well as old favorites to enjoy. (sigh) Those were the days.

My uncle has (I still don't know if he has it) an Atari 2600. And between when my Grandma died and my Grandpa remarried, my Uncle had an Atari 2600, and he also had three of the worst games ever. ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark (Has anyone beat that game?) and Pac-Man.I still wish my Uncle has his old Atari, because if he does and he doesn't want it, I may ask him if I could have it.

"My favorite games were alot of the Activision ones like Frostbite and Cosmic Ark."

Cosmic Ark is still one of my favorites. "Frostbite" is a great Activision Game, but "Cosmic Ark" was an Imagic game. Imagic is one of my favorite developers for the 2600. Atari sued them back in the day because "Demon Attack" was very similar to "Phoenix". Imagic settled out of court and "Demon Attack" went on to be their only huge hit.

I can beat ET. It shocked and awed a couple of my friends when I actually found all the phone pieces and got him home. It's definitely not the "worst" game out out there for the 2600, but man did they make way too many copies of that game.

Atari 2600. Sigh. I have alot of great memories about that system. My favorite games were alot of the Activision ones like Frostbite and Cosmic Ark. The only Atari game that ever disapointed me was Donkey Kong Jr, probably because I compared it to the Coleco Vision version, which was much better.

And the joystick controller ruled. I stil have callouses on my thumb from it.

Sadly, I no longer have any of my Atari stuff. It was lost in the great House cleaning of 1990 or something like that. Wish I did though.

Had a buddy who had that Pong thing.

Strangely enough, I was thinking about my Atari 2600 just a little while back. You see, I was playing Kya: Dark Lineage--a game made by Atari for PS2. Oh how far the company has come.

Oh, and the red tank was always faster than the blue tank in COMBAT, no matter what anybody says.

Thanks for the memories.

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